A First Step to Understanding the Challenges of Illegal Immigrants

Rose Cuison Villazor is a professor at the University of California at Davis School of Law. Elizabeth Glazer is a professor at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University.

Updated August 1, 2012, 4:09 PM

What does “coming out” of immigration law’s closet accomplish? From a legal perspective, the answer is: it depends. For some, it could lead to the loss of a job, arrest, detention and — perhaps what many immigrants fear above all else — deportation from the United States. For others, it may lead to discretionary relief from removal (temporary or permanent) and the possibility of adjusting their status to permanent legal resident. The uncertain results that may emerge from the decision to reveal one’s status should not be surprising. Just like any legal case, the context, facts and precedent would shape the outcome.

UndocuBus allows immigrants to gain acceptance and support from one’s family, friends and community.

Importantly, answering this question along legal lines would miss the point that many immigrants and their supporters are trying to make: coming out is about raising consciousness about what it’s like to live in the shadows, to conceal one’s identity. Coming out of the closet provides the opportunity to not only accept one’s true identity but also to gain acceptance and support from one’s family, friends and community. Critically, it is arguably a necessary step toward creating social, cultural and legal change.

In many ways, we can turn to the experience of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and how the legal treatment of these individuals has improved through the years. In 1997, Ellen Degeneres made countless headlines and the cover of Time magazine for coming out. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” had only recently been enacted. Its repeal would occur not until more than a decade later — in 2010 — the same year that Ricky Martin’s coming out would generate considerably fewer headlines.

Perhaps years from now, coming out of immigration law’s closet would not draw as much news media attention as Jose Antonio Vargas and those participating in the UndocuBus did when they chose to reveal their illegal status. And just as laws were passed that helped improve the treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual individuals, laws will also be passed that would provide meaningful and positive treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States.

Coming out is a hugely important first step to recognize the harms felt by a particular group. If that group does not come out, those harms will remain unknown and the group will remain invisible, allowing law to keep people in the shadows. Coming out of immigration law’s closet could ultimately change the social and legal landscape in which they — and we — live.

Riders on the UndocuBus and others who choose to come out of the immigration closet may face many challenges. But by coming out, they take the important first step of allowing the public to understand what those challenges might be.